The Lincolnshire Film Archive has produced a series of DVDs showing life and work in the historic county throughout the 20th Century. This superb series of dvds comprising volumes 1-4 and featuring five hours of rare archive film is brought together at a special offer price of £52.99.

Volume 1: Covers the century's early years, with film dating back to as early as 1901. Grimsby trawlermen bringing home their catch, hats and dresses 1904 style, vintage motor cars and horse-drawn traffic in Lincoln, quarrymen working entirely by hand, but proud of their steam-driven lorry; industry that led the world with products designed and built in Lincolnshire, like the first caterpillar tracked vehicles, there are royal visits, Coronation and Empire Day celebrations, Great War recruitment and early aviation, Isaac Newton's bicentenary, early Lincolnshire shows, all the fun of the fair and seaside holidays, a children's party in the 1920s...

And its true what people say about the old days, things were really different then. The policemen were actually taller, holiday-makers wore their best suits on the beach, and an aeroplane used to be something you could pick up and carry.

Volume 2: covers the 1930s. With the availability of smaller, easy to use cine cameras, many more people were now recording their lives on film, and judging from their pictures, some of them now in colour, Lincolnshire life seems to have been largely unaffected by the political and economic problems of the 1930s.

Agriculture and the Grimsby fishing industry were clearly thriving, with fish now being frozen for retail sale; and RAF planes flour-bombing a canvas tank give little hint of the horrors soon to come. Traditional pleasures such as Scouts Camps, garden fetes and donkey rides at Skegness, Cleethorpes or Mablethorpe were now giving way to novelties like the recently opened Butlins Holiday Camp, and motor racing.

Lincoln features prominently of course, with its buildings old and new, its endless traffic hold ups at level crossings, and its workforce thronging the streets on bicyles. Then there is travel by steam train, motor bus, trolleybus, and various river craft including the Humber ferry, plus floods at Stamford and the reappearance of the famous Trent aegir. Watch out too for Billy Butlin, Gracie Fields, the Dagenham Girl Pipers and a future Prime Minister, the nine year old Margaret Roberts.

Volume 3: covers the war years. In spite of the difficulties and wartime shortages, local film makers managed to produce a detailed record of this dramatic period in Lincolnshire's history. Drawing on their film material, this dvd covers the period from the last desperate months of peace, right through to the victory celebrations of 1945.

Among the memorable scenes featured in this dvd are RAF Lancasters operating out of Lincolnshire bomber bases; Air Raid Precaution (ARP) and incendiary bomb exercises; War Weapons Week and aluminium collection for Spitfires; the sand-bagging of buildings and the construction of air raid shelters; arrival of evacuees from the cities; rationing of food, fuel and other essential supplies; the British Restaurant and TocH organisations in action, and the Home Guard recruitment, training and final disbandment. Also features extracts from the film 'Country Town' which shows how the countryside was doing its bit for the war effort.

Volume 4: covers the end of the 1940s and the early 1950s. With the ending of wartime restrictions, film once again became available to the enthusiastic cinematographer. In this dvd we see film of the bad winter of 1946-47, the first post-war Royal Show, the Festival of Britain, the Humber ferry, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and the 1953 east coast floods, plus much more.

For quick reference of all dvds available within the shop, visit the Farming DVDs A-Z page.